Applying ecosystem services for pre‐market environmental risk assessments of regulated stressors

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. Investigating the environment through an ES framework has gained wide acceptance in the international scientific community and is applied by policymakers to protect biodiversity and safeguard the sustainability of ecosystems. This approach can enhance the ecological and societal relevance of pre-market/ prospective environmental risk assessments (ERAs) of regulated stressors by: (1) informing the derivation of operational protection goals; (2) enabling the integration of environmental and human health risk assessments; (3) facilitating horizontal integration of policies and regulations; (4) leading to more comprehensive and consistent environmental protection; (5) articulating the utility of, and tradeoffs involved in, environmental decisions; and (6) enhancing the transparency of risk assessment results and the decisions based upon them. Realisation of these advantages will require challenges that impede acceptance of an ES approach to be overcome. Particularly, there is concern that, if biodiversity only matters to the extent that it benefits humans, the intrinsic value of nature is ignored. Moreover, our understanding of linkages among ecological components and the processes that ultimately deliver ES is incomplete, valuing ES is complex, and there is no standard ES lexicon and limited familiarity with the approach. To help overcome these challenges, we encourage: (1) further research to establish biodiversity-ES relationships; (2) the development of approaches that (i) quantitatively translate responses to chemical stressors by organisms and groups of organisms to ES delivery across different spatial and temporal scales, (ii) measure cultural ES and ease their integration into ES valuations, and (iii) appropriately value changes in ES delivery so that trade-offs among different management options can be assessed; (3) the establishment of a standard ES lexicon; and (4) building capacity in ES science and how to apply ES to ERAs. These development needs should not prevent movement towards implementation of an ES approach in ERAs, as the advantages we perceive of using this approach render it more than worthwhile to tackle those challenges. Society and the environment stand to benefit from this shift in how we conduct the ERA of regulated stressors.

Using problem formulation for fit‐for‐purpose pre‐market environmental risk assessments of regulated stressors

“…If what constitutes harm is not defined, risk assessors face an extremely difficult or impossible task because there are no criteria to determine whether certain potential effects of a proposed activity are relevant to the risk assessment. Natural sciences can help risk assessors to predict whether there will be consequences of an activity, but cannot determine whether those consequences are acceptable (Devos et al., ). The absence of such definitions of harm is a symptom of what Evans et al.…”

“…If what constitutes harm is not defined, risk assessors face an extremely difficult or impossible task because there are no criteria to determine whether certain potential effects of a proposed activity are relevant to the risk assessment. Natural sciences can help risk assessors to predict whether there will be consequences of an activity, but cannot determine whether those consequences are acceptable (Devos et al, 2019). The absence of such definitions of harm is a symptom of what Evans et al (2006) called the risk assessment-policy gap: the lack of clear policy objectives from which risk managers can set decisionmaking criteria that can focus risk assessment on certain effects and exclude others as less important or irrelevant.…”

EFSA's third Scientific Conference ‘Science, Food, Society’: concluding remarks

“…EFSA applies and develops up‐to‐date methods and approaches to deliver pertinent scientific advice to risk managers. Science is continuously progressing and, in five breakout sessions, the advance of risk assessment science was addressed in the areas of: human health (Hougaard‐Bennekou, ; Lanzoni et al., ), the environment (Devos et al., ,d), biological hazards (Messens et al., ; Waltner‐Toews, ), nutrition (Mathers, ; Woodside et al., ) and managing evidence (Cavalli et al., ; Hartung, ). In each of these sessions, the state‐of‐the‐art was presented and challenges and opportunities for future risk assessment were identified.…”

“…In the area of the environment, the focus was on problem formulation as a tool to frame the environmental risk assessment (ERA) of regulated stressors including those expected to emerge from development in the near future (Devos et al., ), and on the opportunities, challenges and implications of applying an ecosystem services (ES) approach to the ERA of regulated stressors (Devos et al., ). While applying problem formulation to ERA maximises the usefulness of ERA studies for decision‐making, it is still often hindered by the absence of clear policy goals and decision‐making criteria (e.g.…”

Editorial: Special Issue on EFSA's third Scientific Conference ‘Science, Food, Society’

“…Greater discussion and interaction between risk assessors and regulators is essential to clarify such policy goals and decision‐making criteria (Devos et al., ). Using an ecosystem services framework can strongly enhance the ecological and societal relevance of environmental risk assessment and facilitate more holistic assessments that integrate assessments across multiple stressors, geographical/temporal scales and policies/legal frames (Devos et al., ). Acknowledging the exponential explosion of data in recent years which undoubtedly increases the evidence base available for risk assessment, in combination with new technologies and methodologies have great potential to access and analyse the ‘right’ data for regulatory driven science (Cavalli et al., ; Hartung, ).…”